It was a quiet evening. I sat with Kuhoo after a long day. We talked occasionally, for the most of evenings with her, words aren’t required.
“Why get ahead of ourselves? Let us stay simple and see things as they come” Kuhoo spoke.
“I agree, though it’s been difficult to resist the drag. People around try to show what they are not; talk about things they hardly know; and do things they seldom understand”, I said.
The muse continued. I remembered the days in my kindergarten school. On one of these days in winter I felt lost in the crowd and I did my first experiment.
“My pandali kite cut ten kites yesterday evening”, I said and looked into Nikki’s eyes.
“Ten”? Nikki looked astounded.
By next day Kanu, Chandan, Soni, Hemlatha, Kaushik and many others in my class knew that I cut ten kites. Something stopped me from telling Nikki later that I could never really fly a kite. She never thought I could be lying; I never thought I could become famous.
For few days I lived a facebook life, empty inside and ostentatious outside.
Finally one day I saw my classmates gathered around Kaushik. “I cut twelve kites yesterday”, I heard him saying with all the confidence he could muster at that age.
I knew he was lying. I knew his uncle had cut those kites because Kaushik resided only next to my house. And I knew Kaushik couldn’t even fly a kite without his uncle’s help. But I kept quiet as I realized Kaushik, for the same reason I knew, would also know that I was lying few days before.
I also realized even though my experiment was successful, I had failed.
I grew up reading people around, met many other actors; better actors than me and Kaushik with newer ideas and more resounding explanations. But they could never escape me.
Later in class 10, I read ‘akhbar mein naam’, a story by famous hindi writer Yashpal. I realized that the world recognizes that ‘akhbar mein naam’ perspective. I absolved myself and moved on.
After a number of years, lately I feel amused seeing a large number of people like me around me. The desperation continues, and their virtual worlds appear to have taken over them; they look so artificial.
In that facebook world, there is no clash of opinion, no lack of money, no trace of mediocrity and no truth. It’s the world we have projected about ourselves to perhaps show what we are not, what we miss and what we wish.
In the actual world our opinions are flawed, our relations fading, our accounts depleting and we see limitations. But this is the only place where we will eventually find the real happiness, that real love and our place in the world.
It’s not that I have found it, but I know I am directionally right. The first pretense happened within me, so will be the reprisal or the last pretense..
“Why get ahead of ourselves? Let us stay simple and see things as they come” Kuhoo spoke.
“I agree, though it’s been difficult to resist the drag. People around try to show what they are not; talk about things they hardly know; and do things they seldom understand”, I said.
The muse continued. I remembered the days in my kindergarten school. On one of these days in winter I felt lost in the crowd and I did my first experiment.
“My pandali kite cut ten kites yesterday evening”, I said and looked into Nikki’s eyes.
“Ten”? Nikki looked astounded.
By next day Kanu, Chandan, Soni, Hemlatha, Kaushik and many others in my class knew that I cut ten kites. Something stopped me from telling Nikki later that I could never really fly a kite. She never thought I could be lying; I never thought I could become famous.
For few days I lived a facebook life, empty inside and ostentatious outside.
Finally one day I saw my classmates gathered around Kaushik. “I cut twelve kites yesterday”, I heard him saying with all the confidence he could muster at that age.
I knew he was lying. I knew his uncle had cut those kites because Kaushik resided only next to my house. And I knew Kaushik couldn’t even fly a kite without his uncle’s help. But I kept quiet as I realized Kaushik, for the same reason I knew, would also know that I was lying few days before.
I also realized even though my experiment was successful, I had failed.
I grew up reading people around, met many other actors; better actors than me and Kaushik with newer ideas and more resounding explanations. But they could never escape me.
Later in class 10, I read ‘akhbar mein naam’, a story by famous hindi writer Yashpal. I realized that the world recognizes that ‘akhbar mein naam’ perspective. I absolved myself and moved on.
After a number of years, lately I feel amused seeing a large number of people like me around me. The desperation continues, and their virtual worlds appear to have taken over them; they look so artificial.
In that facebook world, there is no clash of opinion, no lack of money, no trace of mediocrity and no truth. It’s the world we have projected about ourselves to perhaps show what we are not, what we miss and what we wish.
In the actual world our opinions are flawed, our relations fading, our accounts depleting and we see limitations. But this is the only place where we will eventually find the real happiness, that real love and our place in the world.
It’s not that I have found it, but I know I am directionally right. The first pretense happened within me, so will be the reprisal or the last pretense..
